le I go yonder and fight the Old One.
And mind! move neither hand nor foot whilst I am away, else I shall
never find you again. If everything around you turns blue, I shall have
beaten the Old One; but if everything turns red, he will have conquered
me."

And with that, and a tremendous roaring bellow, he set off to find his
foe.

Well, she sate as still as a mouse, moving neither hand nor foot, nor
even her eyes, and waited, and waited, and waited. Then at last
everything turned blue. But she was so overcome with joy to think that
her lover was victorious that she forgot to keep still, and lifting one
of her feet, crossed it over the other!

So she waited, and waited, and waited. Long she sate, and aye she
wearied; and all the time he was seeking for her, but he never found
her.

At last she rose and went she knew not whither, determined to seek for
her lover through the whole wide world. So she journeyed on, and she
journeyed on, and she journeyed on, until one day in a dark wood she
came to a little hut where lived an old, old woman who gave her food and
shelter, and bid her God-speed on her errand, giving her three nuts, a
walnut, a filbert, and a hazel nut, with these words:

"When your heart is like to break,
And once again is like to break,
Crack a nut and in its shell
That will be that suits you well."

After this she felt heartened up, and wandered on till her road was
blocked by a great hill of glass; and though she tried all she could to
climb it, she could not; for aye she slipped back, and slipped back, and
slipped back; for it was like ice.

Then she sought a passage elsewhere, and round and about the foot of the
hill she went sobbing and wailing, but ne'er a foothold could she find.
At last she came to a smithy; and the smith promised if she would serve
him faithfully for seven years and seven days, that he would make her
iron shoon wherewith to climb the hill of glass. So for seven long years
and seven short days she toiled, and span, and swept, and washed in the
smith's house. And for wage he gave her a pair of iron shoon, and with
them she clomb the glassy hill and went on her way.

Now she had not gone far before a company of fine lords and ladies rode
past her talking of all the grand doings that were to be done at the
young Duke of Norroway's wedding. Then she passed a number of people
carrying all sorts of good things which they told her were for the
Duke's wedding. And a